How Periscope’s big improvement just changed the news business (even though Periscope had nothing to do with it)

As if Periscope needed more going for it, the live-streaming king is about to get a lot more eyes — and for once the folks at Periscope had nothing to do with it.

Digital news organizations are dancing in their newsrooms (at least we are, at WTOP).

As of today, by typing #katch anywhere in the title of a soon-to-be broadcast Periscope stream, and making sure the Twitter icon is lit, the service will automatically upload that scope to the cloud, where it can be re-purposed by news organizations.

You don’t have to download an app to make it work — just include #katch in the stream description.

#katch itself isn’t new — in March 2015 it launched, making it possible to memorialize Meerkat streams, shortly before Periscope arrived.

Both Meerkat and Periscope have traded heavily on FOMO — fear of missing out.

Initially, Meerkat could only be viewed live, although determined re-purposers realized they could use screen capture software to record streams.

Then #katch made permanence possible for Meerkatters.

Periscope now enables users to replay their streams for 24 hours before it disappears into the ether.

This new version of #katch does have one under-the-hood difference — uploaded videos are no longer hosted by YouTube.

Instead, videos are stored and displayed on #katch’s own platform.

What makes this development so incredibly important for news organizations is that Periscopes can now be embedded in a website.

Until now, news organizations have had to largely decide between the immediate bang of a live Periscope feed, or recording video before sharing it, so it would have some permanency.

Now, you can do both.